Monteverde
by audreyii-fic
Summary: Edward Nygma chooses a pencil. It's harder than it looks. (Gratuitous and frankly shameful Valentine's Day fluff. Spoilers for The Fearsome Doctor Crane.)


_**A/N**: This 'ship is probably going to end with Kristen dismembered in Edward's basement, and I've written Valentine's Day fluff. Go ahead and judge me. I judge myself._

* * *

_**Monteverde ($76.95)**_

* * *

_What visitor only knocks in silence?_

_Opportunity._

Not one of his better riddles. But he'd have to refine it later. Now, he is busy undertaking the most important investigative project of his life to date.

Edward Nygma is choosing a pencil.

The Staples employee is unhelpful, which does not surprise him; most people are disturbingly ignorant in their chosen professions. Resigned — as he always is — to being the most knowledgeable person present, Edward examines each pencil carefully, noting model, manufacturer, size, weight, color, and quantity in turn. The one he borrowed for one month and six days — and returned ninety-eight hours ago — had been a generic seven inch number two. Graphite. Yellow. Hexagonal. Pedestrian. If her other writing utensils are of similar low quality, Miss Kringle has likely formed calluses against her right forefinger.

Edward smiles.

He can fix that.

He can fix so _many_ things. If people would listen.

But — to weigh incontrovertible evidence on the alternate side of the equation — it had to be noted that his approaches to improving Miss Kringle's quality of life had thus far been frequently misconstrued. So perhaps he ought to return an _exact replica_. But why should he offer her something substandard? _She_ isn't substandard.

For that matter, why does Miss Kringle _favor_ lesser gestures? An objectively superior filing system is "inappropriate"; his most flattering riddle combined with dessert is "menacing and weird and inedible"; but a card, a gift so common that an entire industry has sprung up around its production, is "thoughtful"?

The true riddle of humanity is why the mediocre is valued above the exceptional.

And how should this illogic affect his choice of pencil?

Edward remains at the Staples until five minutes past closing. The rudeness of the employees moves him to transfer his business purchases elsewhere for the foreseeable future, in spite of the Office Depot being a further eight point six blocks away.

* * *

Miss Kringle jumps back when he thrusts the wrapped box across her desk. "What is that?" she asks.

"It's a gift." At her expression, Edward corrects himself: "Not a gift. A replacement. For your pencil." She couldn't have forgotten. No one who keeps track of such a haphazard filing system can suffer a poor memory.

She touches the lid with the tip of her index finger. Just for a quarter-second. "Why did you put a pencil in a shoe box?" she says, her eyes never leaving her present. They are such perfectly shaped eyes. "Is it another riddle?"

"No." He'd thought about it — come up with several very clever possibilities, actually — but since the greeting card… incident… caution seemed the more prudent approach. "It's just— it's just a box. Nothing weird. Open it."

She does.

She blinks several times.

Then she says: "Oh."

Of the various reactions for which Edward had prepared, incomprehension was not one of them. "It's a bouquet," he says helpfully. "For Valentine's Day."

"Yes, I can see that."

Good. This means her glasses prescription must still be up to date. "Charles the second started the tradition, but roses die, which actually renders them rather inefficacious as a token of affection. Also you may suffer from pollen allergies. I do."

"I see."

"Here—" he points "—is the brand I borrowed. But I would highly recommend you switch to _this_." Edward plucks the Monteverde from the fifty pencils tied together with green ribbon. "The point-seven lead reduces hand strain and lessens the likelihood of your joints deteriorating in middle-age. You know, most people associate carpal tunnel with excessive use of keyboards, but all repetitive motion of the—"

There are tears on Miss Kringle's face. Again.

Oh. Edward frowns. "You dislike bouquets."

Miss Kringle swipes at her cheeks; the motion dislodges her glasses a few degrees to the right. "No," she says, reaching hurriedly for the tissues on her desk. "No, I just…" Her laugh is a choked sound, like hands are fisted around her larynx. "You're the only one who wished me a happy Valentine's Day, is all. Which is—" she sighs "—very, very depressing."

"I see." He doesn't. "And you were expecting flowers. And cards. From all your friends."

"I don't have that many friends, Mr. Nygma."

"That aren't under indictment for first degree murder."

"Don't be cruel."

Was he? How is stating the facts cruel? Arnold Flass is going to prison. Miss Kringle knows this. Why should it upset her to hear something she already knows?

What is he supposed to do?

Distraction. Of course. Distraction should help with the crying. "During what month—"

"_Please_, Nygma."

"—do people sleep the least?"

"I _don't care._"

"February. Because it's the shortest month. And it's February now." His riddles are always relevant.

Miss Kringle sniffles, then throws her tissue away in a waste bin. "You know the worst thing? I knew you would come." Another tissue. She should have a handkerchief; they are very useful. In a wide variety of circumstances. "That's why I stayed late today."

Wait.

"Why would I do that?"

She was waiting for him!

"Am I _that_ lonely?"

But… she's crying. Maybe he should have come sooner?

"I have such bad luck with men," she moans.

Well, that's just inaccurate. "There's no such thing as luck, Miss Kringle," Edward corrects. "Only probability."

"Okay, then: what's the probability that _you_ are the only person in the entire world to care enough to give me a pencil bouquet on Valentine's Day?"

This is a difficult one. "The 'entire world' isn't really pertinent to the equation. But if we were to cross-reference the number of employees of the GCPD by the likelihood of—"

Miss Kringle leans across the desk, grabs him by the necktie, jerks him forward, and kisses him.

Oh.

_Oh_.

Edward freezes. Her mouth is moving against his, firm and determined and a little rough, and it's good — no, marvelous — but this isn't anything like he'd prepared for and his brain seems to be having some kind of seizure, because he can't respond, he can't inhale, his eyes won't even close. He'd always thought the event known by the slang term "Blue Screen of Death" only occurred to the intellectually-deficient (defined as nearly anyone other than Edward himself). That conclusion now required reexamination. He'd need to do that soon.

_What is the center of gravity?_

_The letter V._

If he doesn't breathe he's going to faint.

Miss Kringle releases him before it comes to that. Her hand leaves his tie, and she starts to fuss with a file on her desk. "Well," she says, the word clipped. "I apologize, Mr. Nygma. That was very unprofessional behavior on my part. I would appreciate it if—"

"Wait. Wait. No. I can do better than that," he blurts out. "It would be statistically irresponsible to draw conclusions from a single outlying event. I can do better."

A blush (the sympathetic nervous system causing vasodilatation) crosses Miss Kringle's cheeks. She doesn't look up. "Then perhaps," she says, "at a later date… there could be more—"

"Data collection?"

The blush deepens. "I'm going to go home now."

"May I walk you to—"

"No. No, that's all right." Edward is about to protest that the 63 line — which she takes — only runs every forty minutes after six o'clock, and that he would be very willing to wait the remaining twenty-three minutes in the bus shelter with her, but she smiles at him and his brain does the Blue Screen thing again. "Good night, Mr. Nygma."

"Happy Valentine's Day, Miss Kringle."

Of course, now that he's returned her pencil, he'll have to think of another method for attracting her notice. And convince her to collect more data. There's a very interesting case on his desk right now involving rate of cutaneous desiccation in sub-zero environments; he could ask her to search her files for similar events involving homicide by mummification. Who wouldn't like that?

Miss Kringle, maybe.

It is a conundrum.

_She_ is a conundrum.

But then, the best things in life are.


End file.
